Rochester’s Planning Board Tuesday endorsed an Approval Not Required (ANR) application for the construction of three single-family dwellings on two-acre lots on High Street at Forbes Road but not without push back from board based on its closeness to Connet Woods.
Connet Woods is designed as a regulated subdivision, Planning Board Chair Arnold Johnson said. Therefore, the board wanted the developer to agree that the High Street lots would connect to that development’s roadway before the panel would endorse the ANR. The developer’s lawyer, Attorney Peter Teitelbaum, said his client disagrees with this as a condition for the ANR and that, in fact, such a condition is not necessary for granting one.
Johnson admitted that the town council has informed the board this condition is not required for an ANR. “But my question is that there will be no safeguards on your application that you will put this on your plans,” he said. “Some poor guy applying for a home here will not get what he wanted. Or the Connet Woods homeowners’ association will complain.”
Teitelbaum said this road connection is something his client, Sarajon Realty, will consider but only after other avenues are explored and the subject is discussed and researched, through “a process, a very circuitous process,” he said.
Board member Ben Bailey warned Ttttlebaum that the town will remember his client’s current irretractable attitude when other permit requests come the panel’s way in the future, and that may affect those decisions. “No one will forget,” Bailey said. But Teitelbaum did not budge from his stance as the board approved the ANR with one abstaining vote, from chair Johnson.
In other action, the board continued until its January 28 meeting its site plan review special permit hearing for a new Eversource Energy substation at 214 Rounsville Road, upgrades necessary to interconnect distributed generation facilities in town. The panel also continued until that date its Definitive Subdivision plan hearing regarding dividing a 28-acre parcel and at 386 Snipatuit Road into a two-acre lot with frontage on Snipatuit Road containing an existing home and outbuilding and two new lots with frontage on a new roadway to be named Peter Crapo Cartway. In both cases, Johnson said the board is awaiting peer review engineering notes from Ken Motta of Field Engineering.
Zoning Bylaw Review Committee members Richard Cutler and Mark Wellington asked the board to reconsider its vote against recommending the new accessory dwelling unit bylaw that will be voted on at the January 27 Special Town Meeting. They argued these new regulations would mean important protections for the town in the face of impending state regulations allowing these units by right.
Johnson responded it was too late legally to do so, and the board has not changed its mind. He said the board can’t re-vote the recommendation without re-advertising the hearing. Plus, the state is making these new regulations something that towns can find a way around. “The state keeps moving the goal post every time they see towns’ draft regulations seeking a way around them,” Johnson said.
“If we have nothing of our own, then we will have the state rules and nothing we can about them,” Cutler unsuccessfully argued.
The Rochester Planning Board’s next meeting will be Tuesday, January 28 at 7:00 pm at Town Hall, 1 Constitution Way.
Rochester Planning Board
By Michael J. DeCicco